EU

The Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession is applicable from 17th August 2015.

According to the new regulation, EU citizens residing in Spain will be subject to the Spanish succession law despite their nationality, unless they have a written will.

Succession laws in Spain abide by the force heirship provisions and it is fundamental for international residents in Spain to have their will in good order, in addition to the one in their countries.

Konsilia has been serving the international expatriate community in Spain since 1982 and we are very happy to draft your will or advice on any other legal or tax issues related to Spanish residence. Please contact Jose Manuel Diaz at josemanuel@konsilia.es

The Madrid Regional Administrative Tax Court (known as “TEAR”) in a decision dated 29 November 2011 (notified on 27 December 2011) acknowledges the application of EU Law over previous discriminatory National Law on the treatment of EU resident pension schemes (in this particular case, a UK pension fund). In this regard, the TEAR specifically refers to the Spanish National High Court of Justice (“Audiencia Nacional”) which delivered a judgment regarding withholding taxes levied on three Dutch pension schemes in Spain.

The TEAR states that the tax treatment suffered by the non resident UK pension fund in Spain during FY 2004 was discriminatory under EU Law compared to a resident Spanish pension fund. The TEAR stressed that the Spanish tax law was discriminatory on the grounds of nationality as well as violating one of the four main principles of EU Law, namely the free movement of capital (Art. 63 TFEU). In addition, the TEAR reiterates that since 1 January 2010, the Spanish domestic legislation was amended as a result of said discrimination in order to be compliant with EU principles. Continue Reading →

In June 2008 the States of Jersey introduced changes to Jersey’s system of corporate taxation in the form of its ‘Zero-Ten’ tax regime.

The new regime was formulated to comply with the EU Code of Conduct on Business Taxation, while retaining Jersey’s competitive position as a leading international finance centre. The standard rate of corporate income tax was fixed at 0%, with most financial service companies taxed at a rate of 10%. Continue Reading →

Events are moving quickly in Europe this week and politicians are talking rubbish about raising taxes in a state of desperate panicking, instead of addressing the fundamental problem, which in my view is writing off effective bad debt.

Once again the Campus of Jerez was the centre point for a development framework of a special forum which involved tax advisors, students, university professors and personnel from the Tax Office. On this occasion, a new conference took place on questions of the prevalent taxation within the European Union which the University of Cadiz imparts within its Tax Advisory Master in conjunction with the Financial and Tax Law given at this University.

How far can the US and the EU governments go to increase taxes and social security charges on wages?. With the purpose of balance their budgets, we believe that higher taxes on employment are suffocating the real economy and the prospects for employment generation.

The European Commission has been very active during the last years regarding Spanish Tax position when a non resident element is involved. Our posting today deals with a matter involving transfer tax and stamp duty in the context of M&A.

During the last decades, individuals acquiring Spanish property owned by a Spanish Company (SL) have been forced to create a double company structure to own the shares of the Spanish company.

In many cases the two shareholders were based offshore and increased substantially the costs of owning property in Spain. The reason was that this acquisition will save the application of a real estate transfer tax which was extended to the disposal of shares.

Spain has been applying for many years a transfer tax charge of 6-7% for the disposal of shares of companies owning real estate assets in Spain. Interestingly enough, the application of this tax was not included in the Transfer Tax Act but in Law 24/1988 on the securities market.

Article 108 of Spain’s Law 24/1988 on the securities market establishes that a 6-7 percent transfer tax (7 percent in most autonomous regions) applies to the transfer of securities of a company whose real estate assets in Spain represent more than 50 percent of its total assets, or whose assets include securities in another entity whose real estate assets in Spain represent at least 50 percent of its total assets, if the acquirer gains control of the real estate entity as a result of the transfer.

The European Commission has asked Spain to modify its transfer tax provisions relating to the acquisition of securities in real estate companies, arguing that the provisions are not consistent with article 5 of Council Directive 2008/7/EC concerning indirect taxes on the raising of capital.Continue Reading →